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| 1988 Regular Season: Tigers vs. Kansas City Royals |
1988 saw the Detroit Tigers as the defending American League East Division Champions. After a slow start, the Tigers caught fire by June and spent the summer chasing the Toronto Blue Jays for the crown, clinching the division with a 3-game sweep in the final series of the season. The Tigers' luck ran out in the playoffs, as they fell in five games to the Minnesota Twins in the ALCS.
Sparky Anderson was back as manager, but this was an aging Tigers roster, as the majority of the players were 30 and over. In fact, Vintage Detroit said that, upon breaking camp, the 1988 Tigers were the oldest roster in the history of the franchise. The farm system by then was in decline, forcing GM Bill Lajoie to add to the team through free agency and trades.
A noticeable absence in the Tigers lineup was star outfielder Kirk Gibson. Gibson departed Detroit for the Los Angeles Dodgers, after he and several major leaguers were declared free agents after the owners were found to have colluded to suppress free agency.
Despite Gibson's loss and the aging roster, the Tigers were a competitive ballclub. Taking over first place by early summer, the Tigers remained in the top spot for most of the season. However, injuries and a long winless streak denied Detroit of a second straight AL East title, as Boston surged ahead and won the division by 1 game. The Tigers finished the season with an 88-74 record.
The Tigers were led on offense by Alan Trammell. Trammell, who had a career year in 1987,
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| 1988 Detroit Tigers Yearbook |
All but one of the Tigers starting rotation was 30 and over. Jack Morris led the staff with 15 wins (15-11) in 34 starts, with a 3.94 ERA and 168 strikeouts, all at age 33. Doyle Alexander, acquired from Atlanta for the stretch drive last season, was 14-11 with a 4.32 ERA and 126 strikeouts in his first full season in Detroit. Frank Tanana, the hero of the division-clinching game last year, matched Alexander's 14-11 record, but didn't win after August. Walt Terrell had a rough season, going 7-16 with a 4.21 ERA in 29 starts. Jeff Robinson, the lone starter under 30 years old (26), had the lowest ERA of the rotation (2.69) and a fine 13-6 record until going down with a sore shoulder.
The bullpen was led by 26-year old Mike Henneman. Firmly established as the closer, Henneman had a fantastic 1.87 ERA and 22 saves in 65 games. Guillermo Hernandez, 1984 MVP and Cy Young winner, saved 10 games with a 3.06 ERA in 63 games. Paul Gibson, Eric King and Don Heinkel each appeared in over 20 games in the pen.
As stated earlier, the Tigers were in first place for a good portion of the summer, but a late-season collapse handed the AL East crown to the Boston Red Sox. The Sox, in turn, were blown away by the Oakland Athletics in the ALCS. Kirk Gibson and the Dodgers then defeated Oakland in five games to win the World Series, with Gibby hitting a legendary walkoff homerun in Game 1.
1988 would be the last time that the Detroit Tigers would be in contention for the postseason in the fall until 2006. In fact, in 1989, the Tigers collapsed to the AL East basement, with a 59-103 record. While the team improved somewhat after that dreadful season, the best they would finish in the last years of the Sparky Anderson era was an 85-77 third place finish in 1993.
References:
1988 Detroit Tigers Statistics, from BaseballReference.com
Holmes, Dan. "Over the Hill” Tigers Nearly Won the 1988 Division Title", Vintage Detroit, 2017.
